Bloomberg EIC Winkler clamps down on Twitter posts

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• Yikes. That'll silence everyone, for sure. Looked up the tweets in question, by the way, and they're all from Bloomberg TV reporters:

  http://twitter.com/popperm/status/12966469016
  http://twitter.com/Colarusso42/status/12958180055
  http://twitter.com/lizzieohreally/status/12967084766
  http://twitter.com/popperm/status/12954614531

• I can't really say anything because any comment I would deem worthy of opining (oh, sorry) would be regarded as an assertion/opinion and therefore inaccurate. What is not inaccurate, however, is that is one horrendous guy to work for. And, although, it is an "assertion," it's time for Winkler to ditch the bow tie. Even that fantasist blowhard Tucker Carlson saw the light on that.

• Mr Winkler does not grasp the concept of Twitter nor does he intend to understand Twitter's true purpose, flow and global acceptance. It's sad to see such an important figure in the media respond in a ridiculous self-pretentious manner.

• Mr. Winkler is correct. Far too many reporters litter their stories with references to what "the White House believes" or "the CIA thinks," or other nonsense. If they say it, report that. But we can't know what they think. (And I've heard that sometimes people may lie about what they're really thinking.)

• Winkler is only demonstrating that he does not understand the constraints or possibilities of Twitter. For example, if someone wrote the following sentence--

  "McCain hammered away at the Wall Street bankers testifying before the committee yesterday, repeatedly saying, 'You big bankers make too much money!' Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs, squirmed in his seat several times and sweated under the spotlight."

  --well, that's a perfectly fine sentence. It could run in any newspaper story in the country. It could not, however, run on Twitter; it is 245 characters long, and reporters have only 140 characters to work with. But somebody, please, tell me how that above sentence is substantively different than:

  “McCain thumping on the ‘’you big bankers make too much money.’ Blankfein looks really uncomfortable.”

  Twitter is merely the same staccato, telegraphic style reporters first had to use in the 1800s when we had only Morse Code and telegrams to get the word out.

  Moreover, Winkler also fails to grasp that people who get breaking news via Twitter are a different breed than those (dwindling few) who rely on newspapers for breaking news. Twitter users are going to be more savvy, connected to the subject, and aware of what's going on factually-- they want to know what's going on contextually as well, and that is what the writers are providing.

  In a world where personality, product and brand are converging, I think Winkler is committing long-term suicide for no valuable reason. And if I were the reporters looking for job security (read: fame), I'd start looking. #FAIL

• I'm behind Winkler. Yes, his rules seem stilted and rigid to people used to Twitter. But even on Twitter, journalists must remain journalists. Though I can see why the reporters tweeted what they did, and I might have done the same thing, I think Winkler makes valid points, and I respect him for being so vigilant. Reporters are supposed to report facts, not state opinions or commentate. If we argue, "It's social media so it's different!" that's just arguing to further erode true, unbiased, objective journalism. We need to be doing just the opposite.

• Winkler is correct. Follow multiple reporters covering the same event and it is easy to see how opinions are injected into 140 character tweets. It is a problem and I'm glad to see it being addressed. Journalists will have to learn to deal with it, as the best in the profession already have.

• >>Journalists will have to learn to deal with it, as the best in the profession already have.

  I can tell you how the best are learning to deal with it-- they're learning to embrace it, cultivate their own reputation for insight, expertise and opinion, and then leverage that reputation into an independent career where they sell their talent to multiple news outlets for more money. (See 'Sorkin, Andrew Ross.')

  I know Bloomberg prides itself on being a giant automat of news, but when your staff is a bunch of automats too you're doing it wrong.

• Good luck, Bloomberg reporters. Hope there's a place for you in the future under Winkler's way of thinking.

• I am trying to understand why they are Tweeting. Bloomberg customers get their news from the Bloomberg Professional Service, where they have 70-character headlines. Why are they sending these messages out to the public and not directing all of their output to the customers? Though I suppose some users could be following Bloomberg reporters, it seems like you are making the user work too hard to figure out how to find that specific reporter. It shouldn't be about the reporter, it should be about the data. And when it comes to Bloomberg, it should be about "How can the person receiving the information make money from it?" Tweeting that Lloyd is sweating under the lights might sound like a juicy, telling detail, and it wouldn't be a bad in a 2,500-word thumbsucker about the decline of the investment bank as we know it, but as actionable information that I can use RIGHT NOW, it fails the test. John McCain saying "I am going to make sure your paycheck gets smaller," might be a different story.